19/01/2012, Mexico City, Mexico

The World Bank, IDRC, and the Inter-American Conference on Social Security organized a high-level technical consultation on January 19, 2012 in Mexico City. The goal: contribute to the World Development Report (WDR) 2013 on labour markets and employment.

Recent world developments have put jobs at the centre of the policy debate and as cornerstones of economic and social development. Amid growing concern about economic growth and job creation, the WDR 2013 aims to better understand the relationship between jobs and the important dimensions of economic and social development. The World Bank has selected seven country case studies representing various employment-related contexts throughout the world. Each country is developing a special study that aims to enrich the WDR 2013.

The consultation for Mexico's country case study

presented the broad outlines of the WDR

outlined the case study on employment

allowed for an exchange of ideas about the main challenges facing job creation in Mexico

Among the highlights from the five individual sessions with different segments of Mexican society:

Public policymakers stressed issues of informality and the role of organized crime, as well as questions on the extent to which governance institutions are able to address the huge challenges of employment in Mexico.

The session with the group of researchers focused on the definition of a good job and how to link that to a concept of well-being. Discussions also touched on the difficulty of reversing the negative trends emerging from Mexico’s development model over the last decades.

The meeting with representatives from international organizations gave rise to a very interesting discussion around informality and the relationship between social protection and employment. The debate, initiated by Santiago Levy, was at the heart of much of the thinking coming out of the session.

Meetings with representatives from the private sector and trade unions focused on the employment problems of Mexico's current export-oriented economic model, and whether existing institutions have the potential to address them. Participants also noted the need for practical advice in these matters.

The consultation's reflective, open dialogue served to enrich the content of the case study on Mexico.